Bob Engelhardt wrote:
Winston wrote:
The inductance of that coil fell significantly when you lopped
off the 'I' core, yes?

Yes and no, I suppose G. 'Though I did lop it off, I replaced it with
a shorting bar, so it shouldn't be drastically different.

Now's the time to break out your $0.99 inductance bridge.

I haven't tested this but it looks reasonable:

http://www.aronnelson.com/gallery/main.php/v/BinOfBrett/Inductance_meter.jpg.html

http://www.aronnelson.com/gallery/main.php/v/BinOfBrett/Inductance_method.jpg.html

Can you place a small value sense resistor in series with the
'common' line to your coil? The way I misunderstand magnetic
core saturation is that we expect a 'knee' where current begins
to increase in a nonlinear fashion in relation to applied
voltage. You could set your 'scope up as an X-Y display to
show this nonlinearity very clearly.

Funny you should mention that. I was going to do that and had dragged my
scope out, only to find it busted! Dang - those things are expensive to
fix!

Not if it is old enough.

Got schematics?

--Winston -- Borrow an 'X' to repair an 'X',
where 'X' = anything.